If You DON'T Like to Exercise, Try This!

Being a physical therapist for over 11 years, I can confidently tell you that if you are someone who doesn’t like to exercise- even someone who loathes exercising, you are not alone. Not even close! 

The vast majority of my physical therapy patients don’t love to exercise. That means that while about half of my job is to figure out what exercises will help you to experience less pain and reach your goals.... the other half of my job is to figure out how to help you stick to your routine. If I can’t help you discover strategies that make it so you can actually do your exercises on a consistent basis, what good are the exercises? For medicine to work, you have to take the pill. For an exercise to work, you have to do the exercise. 

One of my favorite answers for those who don’t like exercising, who truly dread it, who find it hard to carve out even just 10 minutes in their daily routine for a few exercises, is this: don’t!  

I’m not saying to forget about exercising all together, and I’m not saying don’t exercise at all. What I am saying is: don’t try to force yourself to carve out 10 minutes, if that doesn’t work for you. Don’t spend your day dreading 3pm because you scheduled exercise at that time. 

Instead, choose a few exercises and weave them into your daily tasks, into the things you already do throughout your day automatically. This way, you won’t have to remember to schedule in your workout session, and you won't really have to take time out of your day. There are 3 quick and easy steps for implementing this strategy. I will teach you these 3 steps, using 3 specific exercises as examples, but you can apply this method to almost any exercise, if you wish. 

Step #1: Choose a few exercises that you want to try and build more consistently into your routine. Again, I will give 3 examples so you can see different ways to implement this, but you can start with just one, and add more in as you get the hang of it! The 3 exercises I will use for this example are:  

Exercise #1: Heel raises (raising up onto your tiptoes, then lowering back down)

Exercise #2: Sit-to-stand (standing up from a chair, then sitting back down) 

Exercise #3: Balancing on one leg 

Step #2: think of your daily routine, and choose one activity that you can weave your exercise in with. Common activities that work well include washing your hands, brushing your teeth, standing up from a chair, and washing dishes. The key is to choose an activity that you do, without fail, every day. If you do it multiple times throughout the day, even better. 

Step #3: Each time you perform that activity throughout your day, do the exercise you paired with it! To weave my 3 exercises into my activities, it may look like this: 

Heel raises whenever I wash my hands:

Throughout my day, whenever I find myself washing my hands, I will do 5 heel raises. This could be during the act of washing my hands itself, or it could be immediately following. 

Sit-to-stands whenever I get up from sitting:

Throughout my day, whenever I stand up from sitting, I will do 5 sit-to-stands in a row. 

Balancing on one leg whenever I brush my teeth:

Any time I brush my teeth, I will practice standing on just one leg. 

This way, you are incorporating simple movement into your day, without truly adding extra time into your schedule. This can really help make exercise an easy part of your day, instead of something you push off because you don’t feel like you have the time, or dread doing because it feels overwhelming or seems boring, or [insert any other excuses you have here]! 

As this becomes a routine part of your day, you can keep challenging yourself by adding more repetitions (10 heel raises instead of 5, for example) or weave more exercises in throughout your day, with other activities. 

What do you think of this strategy for adding some movement and quick exercise into your daily routine? Will you try it? Do you love it? Email me and let me know, I love hearing from you!

And if you’re looking for more detailed guidance to really improve your strength, balance, and overall mobility, stay tuned! ;)